Microsoft settlement leaves Free Software in the cold

on: 2009-10-08

The European Commission yesterday announced a preliminary
agreement with Microsoft. The deal is supposed to settle an
antitrust investigation about the company's dominant position in
the web browser market. The Commission is also ready to strike
a deal on interoperability. The goal is to allow rival products
to work with Microsoft's applications on the desktop.

FSFE commends Commissioner Neelie Kroes and the European
Commission on their effort to bring more competition to the
European software market. Though clearly negotiated under some
time pressure, parts of the agreement are better than Microsoft's
previous proposals.

While FSFE's input as a steadfast defender of software freedom
over the past seven years has helped to bring about some
improvements on details of the browser selection screen, the
updated agreement proposed by Microsoft does not address the
legitimate concerns of the Free Software community.

Karsten Gerloff, FSFE's President, says: "In its current form,
Microsoft's proposal has many loopholes for the convicted
monopolist to slip through. The lack of a monitoring system leaves
Free Software projects out in the cold. There is no clear
commitment from Microsoft to adhere to web standards in the
future, nor to end the company's habit of adding proprietary
extensions to standards."

In order to fend off another possible investigation by the
European Commission, Microsoft is also offering a set of promises
to let rival programs work with some of its desktop applications
such as Outlook and Sharepoint. Yet Free Software projects, which
are often the strongest competitors to the company's offerings,
will not be able to use the patent licence proposed by Microsoft.

FSFE's legal counsel Carlo Piana says: "We are disappointed that
major issues for Free Software and other small, innovative players
remain unaddressed. Private enforcement is out of reach for them.
This is a missed opportunity to break new ground in antitrust
enforcement."

FSFE will analyse Microsoft's proposed commitment in detail in the
coming weeks and provide feedback to the Commission. Our goal is
to help shape a deal for a sustainable, interoperable and
competitive future.